Highly watchable Western based on a story by Barney Slater with screenplay by expert James Edward Grant ; dealing with confrontation between family members . The picture gets action Western , shootouts , wonderful outdoors and turns out to be quite entertaining with amazing visual style . This interesting movie is set in post-Civil War ; it features a previous dance hall girl and ex-prostitute called Lorna (Anne Baxter) , masquerading as a lady , meets and impulsively marries Confederate ex-officer Colt Saunders (Charlton Heston) , returning to run the family ranch in Texas . Everyone there is enchanted with Lorna ; however , the carpetbag state commissioner (Bruce Bennett) and his hoodlum (Forrest Tucker) are set to grab all the big ranches , unless some ranchers led by Colt decide to battle . And one of the carpetbaggers knows Lorna's secret . Meanwhile , Colt's brother (Tom Tryon) wants to sell the ranch in order to get his share of inheritance . Later on , things go wrong when Colt finds out his wife was once a whore .
Enjoyable Western packs drama about family squabbles , thrills , shootouts , go riding and some moving action sequences . It's a medium budget film with good actors , technicians, production values and pleasing results . In this case family feuds don't make for a really thrilling film and contains some flaws and gaps . Produced immediately after Charlton Heston completed Ten Commandments (1956) and reunited him with co-star Anne Baxter. This was Heston's last film under his original Paramount contract ; he felt that Tom Tryon, who was cast as his brother, was not right for the part . However, because "The Ten Commandments" had not yet been released, Heston hadn't yet achieved the star clout necessary to demand cast changes . ¨Three violent people¨ belongs a trilogy directed by Rudolph Mate regarding to the ranch scenarios , adding ranchers confrontations , joining Western with melodrama , including the followings : ¨Branded¨ (1951) with Alan Ladd and ¨The violent men¨ with Glenn Ford and Edward G. Robinson . Good performances from Charlton Heston as obstinate war veteran and rich owner returning to his Texas ranch , Anne Baxter as his wife with a dark past and Tom Tryon as a crippled brother that lost one arm in his childhood blaming to Heston . Large plethora of secondaries , such as Gilbert Roland , Bruce Bennett , Peter Hansen , Barton MacLane , Elaine Stritch and some of them uncredited as Robert Blake and Jamie Farr . Colorful and glimmer cinematography by Loyal Griggs in Vistavision , Hi-Fi . Evocative as well as atmospheric musical score by Walter Scharf .
The motion picture was directed in sure visual eye by Rudolph Mate . Polish-born (Cracovia) and passed away Beverly Hills (1964) Mate was an assistant cameraman for Alexander Korda and later worked throughout Europe with noted cameraman Karl Freund , director Carl Theodor Dreyer and Erich Pommer . Dreyer was so impressed with his work that they hired him as cinematographer on The Passion of Joan of Arc . Mate is considered to be one of the best cameramen of cinema story . Mate was soon working on some of Europe's most prestigious films, cementing his reputation as one of the continent's premier cinematographers. Hollywood came calling in 1935, and Mate shot films there for the next 12 years before turning to directing in 1947 . Unfortunately, while many of his directorial efforts were visually impressive ,especially his sci-fi ¨When the worlds collide¨ (1951) , his labour as cameraman was excellent . He realized a variety films of all kind of genres as Adventures : ¨The Black Shield of Falworth¨ , ¨Seven Seas to Calais¨ , Western about themes of card players on riverboat as ¨The Mississipi gambler¨(1963) and ¨The rawhide years¨(1956) and about conflicts between Indians and cavalry as ¨In the siege at Red River¨(1954) and Noir films : ¨Union Station¨ , ¨Second chance¨ . He also directed Epic films as ¨The Barbarians¨ and ¨The 300 Spartans¨ . The films themselves were for the most part undistinguished, with his best work probably being the film-noir classic ¨DOA¨ (1950). ¨Three Violent people¨ rating : Passable and acceptable , 6 . Well worth watching .
